🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 27 Oct 2000, Angus McBastard wrote:

> Your analogy is weak to say the least, but even using such a tool, you
> have to agree that the closed source equivalent under this frame of
> reference is selling a piece of music and then *forbidding* the singing
> of the *song*.

Wrong analogy. I think you're trying to suggest something more along the
lines of licensing you to perform the song in a particular venue only for
you to find that your license is violated if you perform the song in a
different key or with a slight variation of the wording that would be more
appropriate to the audience.

> The fact is that a piece of software supplied without source code is a
> product unfit for consumption. This has been demonstrated empirically
> time and again. Further, shrink-wrapped software licencing as it stands
> today supplies no guarantees as to fitness of use of even *object* code
> and as such contravenes just about every consumer standard you can think
> of. 

This should certainly be seen as a key point in my opinion. When you
purchase a peice of software that you have no right to fix or otherwise
alter you are entirely reliant upon the promises of the supplier in terms
of suitability and fitness for the purpose it is sold to meet.

A computer program or suite of programs that crashes and causes data
corruption due to errors in the programing is not fit for the purpose.

In no other sector would it be seen as reasonable to require the consumer
to accept that a product is fit for the purpose it is sold for without
having first seen and tested the product properly.

> Software companies, far from suffering from piracy, have been stealing
> and profiteering from consumers for decades.

Perhaps however if people continue to purchase from such companies this
problem cannot be resolved. Alas Microsoft has a monopoly which severely
reduces the ability of consumers to choose an alternative.

Jason Clifford